Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Between 2003 and 2006, the city paid $43.5 million to hundreds of firefighters on injury leave - all of it tax-free. Among the recipients: 132 firefighters who collected more than $100,000 each during that period. Of those, 20 received between $200,000 and $337,000, according to a Globe analysis of city payroll records....Taken together, nearly 20 percent of the department's payroll goes to fund injured leave and overtime pay....Injured-leave pay is full wages, tax-free. Disability pensions are 72 percent of pay, also tax-free....Fire Commissioner Roderick L. Fraser, who took the post 13 months ago, said he was astonished to learn recently about what he describes as an abuse of the system - that scores of men remained on injured leave status for two, three, or four years before department officials and then the Boston Retirement Board processed their disability retirement applications.

...

Despite claiming he is "permanently disabled," firefighter Albert Arroyo is a bodybuilder.

Thanks to the economic slump, cities will no longer be able to afford this abuse.